[Tickets #12740] Re: Better return from search API call

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Ticket URL: http://bugs.horde.org/ticket/12740
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  Ticket             | 12740
  Updated By         | Jan Schneider <jan at horde.org>
  Summary            | Better return from search API call
  Queue              | Turba
  Version            | Git master
  Type               | Enhancement
  State              | Feedback
  Priority           | 1. Low
  Milestone          | 5
  Patch              |
  Owners             |
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Jan Schneider <jan at horde.org> (2013-10-14 15:01) wrote:

>> Anything returned from the API should be compatible with a RPC call
>> as well. Requiring logic in the returned object to access the
>> requested data will not work over e.g., json-rpc calls.
>
> Huh?  How is this supposed to work?  See mail/imapOb - that returns  
> a Horde_Imap_Client_Base object.  That is most certainly NOT  
> something that can be returned via a JSON-RPC call.  (or  
> mail/flagList.  Or mail/createMailbox).

Well, just because you added API methods in the past that return  
objects, doesn't mean that this is correct behavior.
The point is that all API methods are exposed through the external API  
too. This indeed renders all methods that return or expect objects in  
an RPC context useless. For methods like imapOb this might be  
acceptable because using it only makes sense in a PHP context anyway.
That's a completely different story for methods like contacts/search  
though, which make a lot of sense in an RPC environment.

> And that is extremely concerning if you are saying that  
> inter-application API calls are restricted to simple data structures  
> .  That is a **crippling** limitation for a feature that came AFTER  
> the original API design - which allowed PHP objects to be returned.

Wrong. The original API design always only allowed simple structures.  
There might have been an exceptions somewhere, or two, but the methods  
that you used an argument for your point of view have been added by  
yourself, long after APIs have been added or used in Horde.

> If you disgaree, than there needs to be a separate RPC framework in  
> the future.  Or at least a separate search call that is RPC specific.
>
> But you absolutely cannot be expected to know the structure of the  
> photo data object, so at a minimum this ticket cannot be closed.   
> This needs to be documented somewhere.

Agreed, but it's the job of the API method, or at least for Turba  
internally, to convert these kind of attributes to something usable.